Ahh, so I need to look over this class and what I have achieved in it- or what it has helped me to understand about myself, I suppose. That’s a big question, and as usual I have a lot of different answers for it all jumbled in my head and completely unorganized. Usually when this happens I make lists. I like lists because they are the ultimate form of organization and they allow for (often a false) sense of achievement when it comes to big projects and such. That being said, have a list.

Some Things that I Learned about things that I learned about Myself and some Things:

I sleep a lot. It’s really strange to me because as a child I hated sleeping because I found it to be really, really boring. I still find it to be boring but I have also realized that without it I don’t function very well. And if my body wants to sleep, it sleeps, regardless of whether or not my brain wants to stay awake.

I put myself first, when it comes to me. If I get sick, I don’t go to class. This doesn’t affect anyone but me.

When I can’t concentrate I can’t retain knowledge; when I can’t retain knowledge I don’t learn anything.

Half the time I take notes because writing things down helps me to remember in my head what I am learning. the other half of the time I doodle random things because doodling allows me to clear my head and open my ears to the sounds of the speakers without being distracted by things happening in the class.

I like blogging, but only about myself. I don’t really feel confident in blogging about anything or anyone else.

Missing class doesn’t seem like such a big deal when I look at the bigger picture. Ten years from now, who cares if I slept through animation class? As long as I learned what skills need to be learned, that’s all that will matter.

I don’t think I normally talk loudly , but when everyone else is quiet I think that I talk too loudly to make up for the silence I can hear. Laughing helps fill the space too.

I like to laugh, which is funny (haha) because I don’t really like to smile. Laughing is different to me.

I talk about myself a lot, but it’s not because I’m totally self-centered, I’m just afraid that I don’t really know enough about anything else to have the confidence to have intelligent conversations about it (exceptions include: cats, colour theory, anime/cartoons, manga/comic books, computer programs, and various states that I have visited and countries that I have studied).

I didn’t really make any friends in this class, and that is O.K. with me. I don’t really go to class to make friends, I go to class to learn. { “The classroom is a wonderful, if artificial place: your professor gets paid to pay attention to your ideas, and your classmates are paying to pay attention to your ideas”— @austinkleon

I worry about money a lot. It affects me even when I don’t realize it. I think this might be part of growing up.

It makes me sad that occasionally I find my own creative work tedious.

I like to share my ideas with everyone, which is probably why I spend 80% of my time online.

I found that I’m afraid to draw fanart because I think people will accuse me of being uncreative, but most of the time I don’t really care what they think.

I know that if I don’t do anything I won’t have anything to show and that if I don’t show anything I won’t get anywhere, but I still find myself too lacking in confidence to show my work that often and when I do it’s never a serious presentation.

I am my own worst critic; the things that I think you are going to say are the worst crap I ever have to take.

I don’t like to take crap- and after a while I say fukkit and move on with life.

I don’t dwell on mistakes because I hate monotony. I’m too interested in what’s going to happen tomorrow to worry too much about what happened yesterday; afterall it has already happened and it’s not going to change.

People are mostly crazy. I think that crazy is okay in moderation, but that in contrast too much normal is unhealthy.

I really, really hate the chairs that they have in IT265. They are horrible.

Well shit, I’m here because I am. It just sort of happened one day. I couldn’t really control it or anything. I just am.

A better question would be: Why do I continue to be here? What keeps me here? Why haven’t I left? Etc. Even though I say it’s a “better” question, it’s still pretty stupid. It’s like walking up to someone and saying “why are you still alive today?” or even more awkward “why do you continue to live and not die?”. What sort of a question is that? It’s a weird question, that’s what sort. A weird question that would get you weird looks and weird answers; or possibly just rude answers.

I don’t really have an answer, except that I feel that not being here would be a waste. I must be here for some reason or another, or else I wouldn’t be here. The Universe, I feel, is not without its reasons and logic- it’s not pointless, no matter how pointless it seems from time to time.

I also like being me.

I’m glad I’m here because I get to be me and I think being myself is pretty awesome.

I don’t think that I personally am awesome, but being able to be a person is awesome and therefore, by proxy I’m awesome too. I guess that means everyone else is awesome as well, but I don’t really care that much- haha- sorry, selfish at heart. ❤

<OTHER PEOPLES STUFF>

From the group of assignments two weeks ago, I have to agree that Brian’s assignment is the one that I felt was closest to the way that I felt (or used to feel) about my fears and anxieties. Very few of the other projects quite got me the way that one did. There were a few that made me uncomfortable and a few that I thought were sad, but not frightening but in the end after I left the class I cleared my mind of just about everything so I wouldn’t overthink it. I don’t like to dwell on things and since I tend to be a really empathetic person I found myself trying really hard to not think about it.

From the group of assignments last week, I was really affected by Colby’s talk, but it wasn’t really about fear so much as just feeling a since of helplessness that made me uncomfortable (it’s none of my business) and yet wanting to help also (I would take the responsibility of making it my business if I had to). The other one that really got me was Monica’s and it’s not just because of her “mental breakdown”- I really identified with her. I mean, that’s exactly how I felt in high school and when I started college, except that I was a loser and decided that I didn’t care enough about my writing to finish it, let alone show it off to people. And now I have a horrible habit of not doing things when I think people won’t like them–or worse, when I convince myself that it’ll be a waste of my time to try.

In retrospect, it’s not that other people’s assignments didn’t effect me at all, it’s just that these rung-out as being the ones to catch my attention the most, probably because I identified with them the best- or because the subject matter and presentation were so powerful. The other projects sort of blend into groups of “this is my phobia” or “here’s a project that sort of abstractly demonstrates my fear, maybe”. Most of them either made me feel ill or made me laugh for some reason. Like I said, I’m an empathetic person so whatever most of the room was feeling I pretty much reflected that at the time.

>It’s fine, I’ll do it another day. It’s not like the game is getting any more expensive. XD

>It’s alright, it’s really just a right-now kinda’ thing

>anyway, chatting with you is helping a little, thanks

You are welcome!

How did your presentation go?

>It went just fine, it’s just that the assignment was on fear and we had to do an experiment about it so I waited to go last so my anxiety would build up so I could show people what it’s like to really freak out over nothing

lol

Ah! That was quite cleaver of you!

>It was really crazy though

>I wasn’t really that nervous, so I ate a lot of sugar and drank a lot of caffeine beforehand and that really amplified it (along with hearing other people’s presentations too)

Again, cleaver!!

>most of the people seemed pretty unaffected by it and obviously just wanted to go home

but there were a few people who really understood what I meant

>I didn’t get much of a discussion though

>I just babbled and laughed for about 25 minutes straight

haha Nice!

>lol

>do you mind if I use bits of this convo in my write-up for the presentation?

I didn’t get a chance to finish my experiment for the Fear assignment, which was going to be on my biggest fear (outside of my medically diagnosed anxiety):

The fear of failing to meet what I believe in my heart to be every person’s highest expectations of me.

Also known as:

I’m not afraid to fail, only afraid of what people will think of me if I do.

I hate disappointing people. I think that seeing the disappointment in someone’s face is the most painful thing on the planet. I cannot even go into great enough detail the things that I do on a daily basis so that no one misunderstands anything about me and therefore can never be disappointed in my actions.

Now, obviously this is deep stuff- I mean really, greatest fear of all time and it took me a long time to sum it up with so few words. So it’s hard for me to really, really get into all the psychobabble behind it and blah blah blah, so let me skip to the point:

Why I don’t have an experiment to present–

2am– My toilet floods. Not just a little bit, not just onto the floor around the toilet, but the whole bathroom and into the kitchen below. I had to call in an RA and her supervisor to shut off the water to the whole of the upstairs because it would not stop. It damaged the bathroom floor, kitchen ceiling and a bunch of food. It flooded the heating vents upstairs and the stove downstairs and the water filled our kitchen ceiling light and caused it to rip right through the tiled ceiling and hang there by some wires.

Did I mention that this was the toilet? And you can imagine why I flushed it right? Alright, enough of that.

2:30am- We’re given another place to stay. This isn’t the first time my roommates have had to evacuate our place, but it’s the first time we’ve had to shut the water off. My two roommates opted to stay sleeping in our townhome, but I personally dislike peeing outside, so I opted to stay in the show-apartment in Orvis house because hell if I was going to go without a toilet.

2:45am- I can’t find anything. I have work in less than five hours, so I need to grab my work shirt, badge and a change of clothes. I can’t find any of these things and myself and the RA are rushing around the room searching for things while I babble on nervously about how crappy our townhome has been and why I might get fired if I show up to work the next day out of uniform. I find the uniform, grab my bedsheets and bag and follow the RA out.

3am- I move to the temporary apartment. It’s the place in Orvis that they take you to see when they want to get you to move on-campus and pay out the ass for housing. It’s really nice and full of fake stuff. I opt to sleep on the couch, since I’m only getting 4 hours of sleep anyway. I go to the bathroom (No toilet paper…) and go to bed.

7am– I wake up for work. My shift starts at 8 and my plan is to get dressed, grab my bedding, run back to my place, drop it off, grab breakfast and run to work.

7:10am- I can’t find my gnikcuf uniform. I search the whole apartment even though I only slept on the couch. I keep telling myself out loud that I’m not going crazy, that I’m just having a bad day. I punch myself in the head to make sure I’m awake (and I am). I say, “fukkitall!” and leave the apartment with my bedding and bag. I must have forgotten to grab the damn things after all.

7:15am- I get back to the townhome: no uniform. I search the whole townhome for the damn thing and ask my roommates and call the RA I spoke to before to ask if she remembered if I had them (she didn’t) and finally I say “fukkitall” again and head downstairs to grab my breakfast drink. The kitchen smells like stale…well, you can guess.

7:25am- I retrace my steps from the trip over there with the RA. Half-way down the sidewalk I find my shirts bunched up on the cold ground, damp and smelling faintly of…well, Indianapolis. There’s no badge with the shirts. I begin to ponder why I didn’t just retrace my steps on the way back instead of taking the shortcut back to the townhome like I did. Then I remembered that I’ve had 4.5 hours of sleep and I didn’t give a damn. I hop a shuttle to the campus center.

7:40am- I call my supervisor to explain why I have no uniform, badge or key. I start off with “Hi, I’ve had a really bad morning, but the good news is that I am actually coming into work!” My awesome supervisor sympathizes with me and says it’s no big deal and that another supervisor can come by and open the doors for me and so-on-and-so-forth.

8am- I am at work. The end. But not really, because I have this really crappy idea that will have to do for now…

My experiment about fear–

Holy crap guys, I am right here typing reasons why I don’t have an experiment without telling you what the experiment was.

Well, the experiment was going to be about a meeting I was supposed to have with the Vice President of IT (that’s my boss’s boss’s boss) and how I was terrified that I was going to say or do something to not only get me fired but shame and embarrass my coworkers. It’s something I have been stressed over for the past week and it’s been driving me mad.

But that meeting turned out to not be today.

So instead I get to be nervous about having nothing to present at all except a frustrating story about why I have nothing to present.

This, in itself is making me nervous. Can you guess why? That’s right, I’m afraid of disappointing Beth (I don’t care about anyone else’s opinion, think of me what you will- you’re not grading me anyway). Why am I afraid of disappointing her? Well, being a person with medical anxiety I really had a lot to work with on this one. “Fear” was such a huge topic and while I picked a fear and a situation that I could use to demonstrate to myself why I was fearful, I didn’t get to do a thing with it.

And why? The underlying reasons are somewhat of a mystery to me. If it was something that I was so worried about, why didn’t I plan better for it? Didn’t I plan for it? It was my mistake writing the meeting down incorrectly, but that’s a normal mistake. Would I have done better if not for the disasters of this morning? I would like to think so. I would honestly like to think that I could have pulled something out of my creative little brain that would have been the perfect piece of B.S. to present instead of my failure. But I didn’t. I didn’t because I am so damn tired and so damn fed up with everything right now that in all honesty I couldn’t care less.

I didn’t have to go to the meeting, I didn’t get in trouble at work, I didn’t lose my uniform, I didn’t go without breakfast, I wasn’t late to work, I don’t plan to skip class and hopefully when I get home I’ll be able to get to my microwave and use my toilet again.

Fear and anxiety can suck it- I AM TIRED.

Oh hey look at that, I missed yet another class. Well, this time it was due to health issues though not of the disease-y kind. Going into it would be…let’s just say it’s a good thing I didn’t go. I probably would have passed out. 🙂

Of course this meant I missed the field trip but I have a feeling from reading other people’s responses that it was to the “dark side” of IT where all the (awesome) expensive stuff that you can request for use in your Capstone (if you are awesome enough) is hiding. I’ve been over there a few times; it’s pretty exciting.

Alright, so the other post- the thing about the…thing with the steps and whatnot. We were given

Inspiration > Idea > Concept > Trial > Refine > Product

But when I was thinking through my process I found that while the 6 terms mentioned above are accurate, there is no way I could limit the layout to a mere line. I mean, my brain moves around far too much for that; it’s everywhere at once. To say that my process is that organized and linear would be a horrendous lie, perpetrated only to make other people who can’t narrow down their process feel bad about themselves in comparison. That is my opinion on the matter.

Here is what I came up with. I used this process to make this image, which is why it’s sort of…everywhere:

I totally was not there. I bet all sorts of important revelations were made. OK, I was there but I was not there I was mostly coughing. Which I’m still doing now, so isn’t that just awesome? Influenza- hope I didn’t give it to anyone on Monday…I should not have gone to class, but I thought I was getting better, not worse!

Anyway, so rules. I’m a huge fan of rules but that’s only because I’m not a huge fan of the average stupid person. My definition of “stupid” being someone who does something even though they are aware what they are doing is not intelligent. Idiots, mostly bored ones, are the best reason to put rules down. I like to think I’m not an idiot at least 98% of the time, but when I am I’m sure rules keep me from being one for long.

Unwritten rule: Don’t dance on the tabletops at a restaurant.

Fact: Rule or not, I have always wanted to do this.

Just jump up on the table and dance around. It’s weird, it’s different it’s…well, stupid and pointless but all the same I really want to do it. In my head, the consequences outweigh the fun that I might have, so good little kitten that I am I have not once jumped onto a restaurant table and danced. But let it be known to the world, I have seriously thought about it. Probably once every year since I was about three or four.

To be honest, no one has EVER told me NOT to dance on a restaurant table, so someday I just might.